Good news for animal rights activists: Lab-grown human cells can be used
to test for allergic reactions to cosmetics, possibly negating the practice
of animal testing for certain compounds.

In the US, animals are still regularly used as test subjects in studies
of the toxicity and allergy sensitivity of cosmetics, detergents and oils.
But animal testing for cosmetics was banned in the European Union in 2009.
Cosmetics manufacturers thus have no way to test their products for allergy
sensitivity. (Animals are still used in a wide range of other tests,
however.)

Banning cosmetics testing is good news for animals, but it can be
problematic for people who suffer from allergic contact dermatitis, in which
itching or eczema results from prolonged exposure to certain chemicals.
Tests can help pinpoint the source of the "sensitizing" chemical, or the
chemical that makes one�s skin sensitive to reaction. But those tests
require animal or human subjects.

Now researchers at Lund University in Sweden may have found a workaround,
by studying the genes of human cells. Their research is published in the
open-access journal BMC Genomics, published by BioMed Central.